Guild Wars 2

Is raising the dead, kinda like the risen, within a necromancers power?
I figured if it was, then if was just taboo to do so

Not that we’ve seen, to my knowledge. The only undead we’ve seen past the minion level were either created of their own accord (or at least believed to be), or raised by other, more powerful undead. Necromancers, so far as we’ve seen, are limited to creating what are essentially puppets, with only a rudimentary degree of intelligence, and seemingly no lingering sense of self or who they were in life. (There is one case where a minion talks, but it was just some variant of “by your command”, iirc.)

That said, necromancers are fully capable of making a given body a minion without altering it’s shape. While pretty much mindless, and not meaningfully different from the patchwork minions we use in-game, that is sufficient to count as “raising the dead” or “zombies” in some settings.

“Raising the dead” meaning “Hey, I got a brainlesss hunk of meat wandering in my backyard!”? Yes.

As far as I know, there is that (making a corpse into undead) or “raising a corpse back to life.” One for sure is possible for GW necromancers, the other maybe. (IIRC, necromancers did had a res skill in GW1. At least a temp one).

Yes, if a necromancer wanted to have an army of minions just like zombies, they could. It’s probably considered disrespectful or bad form to do so though.

So from what you two have generously given me, we can assume fairly well that a Necromancer can make a zombie. Mindless though. ( Kinda like a Night of the living dead thing, aimless, no memory of what it was before ) Rather than it having any signs of life.

On the topic, could a necromancer turn someone into a shade?

I’m not sure. All of the other minions require some sort of dead remains, and the shadow fiend certainly looks identical to a shade. And necros do seem to have edged into ritualist territory in other places, so maybe it isn’t so strange that they would be binding souls to their will. Bit of a scary thought, though.

Just somthing fun to think about

In Ghosts of Ascalon, Killeen creates a skeletal minion in the beginning, and uses a fresh Ebon Vanguard corpse for a minion later one. They are not autonomous, but you get full-body undead, so to speak.

In GW1, we saw necromancers (such as Oberan) make autonomous full-body undead minions. Though I think Oberan is the unique case and most undead are made by powerful undead necromancers (such as Palawa Joko, Khilbron, Zoldark, and some nameless Undead Necromancers in pre-Searing’s daily quests). In such cases, some had shown high intelligence (mainly Joko’s minions), while others seemed to have only limited intelligence (but still more than your standard mindless risen).

I’m not even sure if we can safely rule out that normal necromancers could raise a bunch of zombies. We just don’t see them do it. It may just be for ethical reasons, rather than it being beyond their power.

We do know that necromancers can summon the spirits of the dead, and commune with them. I see no reason why raising a zombie would be any more difficult than raising a normal minion.

The reason it isn’t common is probably less to do with ethics and more to do with ability. Since we see in the literature that not everyone is ethical and norn culture finds unethical things allowable as long as it’s in pursuit of forging a legend. If a-net is following suite, it just takes a heck of alot more power to raise autonomous minions. It makes sense and it accounts for the unique ‘famous’ necros being able to do it.

If we go with lore that’s already been established and generic rules/laws governing necromancy that have been pre-established in other works (Legacy of Kain, for example), the creation of a sentient undead requires a soul to be bound to the body (Mortanius flayed the paladin Malek alive, then later bound the man’s soul to his former armor. Or in the Darksiders universe, where it’s revealed that constructs have a portion of a soul infused within their frame while Wardens contain a full soul, giving them sentience & autonomy). Weaker summonings of the undead could be animated and sustained by channeled necrotic energies (like a drawn-out version Diablo 2’s corpse explosion) or by harnessing enough residual life energy from the organic matter that composes the minion to create a “spark of life”— just enough to allow the creation to fight and be subject to the will of its creator.

Now, with the “spark of life” theory, it becomes logical to argue that more “energy”= more sentient creation. I stand behind the assertion that it a soul which grants autonomy & sentience. The reason behind only certain necromancers being able to forge such creations is that they were able to infuse a soul into their work: it’s one thing to be able to commune with the spirits of the dead & manipulate life force, but a whole other to draw forth an intact soul, break its will to your own, then infuse it into a lifeless body— that would require much more skill.

Be it as it may, the channeled explanation could be to why currently we are limited to one summoning of each “slot”. The player’s character is (subtly) channeling energies to the minions to keep them in the fight & to ward off decomposition. The spark of life explanation could explain why in GW1, necromancers could summon waves of undead but each minion required a corpse—vital signs had ceased, but there was enough life energy remaining to animate the body. Eventually that energy would run out.

Well this reason may be cheap, but how about practicality?
I mean the minions in the game are all very specialized so it kinda makes sense to just use bodyparts to make a undead in the shape exactly you need.
Flesh Golem? He needs to be sturdy, have a powerful weapon to fight and and big horn for his ramming attack. So you use parts from diffents bodies and arrange them the way you want.

Well apparently Trahearne can raise things that were never alive. Practically I’ve got no idea how that works, but I’m sure it addresses some of those ethical issues.

I love my joke that flesh golems used to be unicorns… until necromancers came about!

But yeah, bar flesh fiend (the devourer) and flesh wurm, the others don’t really seem to be anything more then combined parts.

That and in general, it’s probably more acceptable to see a bone fiend then a full human undead following a necromancer. Gw2 minions seem more tied to their master, while GW1 minions were far more numerous, but when the master died they swarmed anything around (and overall degenerated quickly, control or not). Led to fun times in Vizunah square where the minion armies would attack the envoys, then the players in the cutscene :P

Ooo. That’s a good point about GW1 Kalavier. Since they go crazy in GW1 we can see that they do have a form of will power. Even if it’s just anger the way other fantasy universes portray risen dead. But if necros have started raising “flesh puppets” in GW2, it may indeed be for practicalities sake, as Derom said. It would be a constant effort to maintain controle the way it was done in GW1 so modern necros may see raising willful zombies as an outdated practice. With only the most powerful necros able to maintain the will power to reliably keep their minions will in check. As Zaitains minions say, his will is their own.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I’m not even sure if we can safely rule out that normal necromancers could raise a bunch of zombies. We just don’t see them do it. It may just be for ethical reasons, rather than it being beyond their power.

We do know that necromancers can summon the spirits of the dead, and commune with them. I see no reason why raising a zombie would be any more difficult than raising a normal minion.

Or if not ethics, just because they don’t want to upset people, and end up with a bunch of angry villagers with pitchforks and torches banging on their door.

That sounds like a good reason to me. And it could also be specialization. Because if you think about it, assembling a meat-puppet out of many corpses in the soil, is really not that different from assembling one corpse just as it was. And as Derom also pointed out, a minion is a very specific type of undead servant, equipped with specific attributes that the necromancer needs. A minion is more than a normal zombie.

The Flesh Golem is a good example of a minion that has all the right attributes to be more than just a zombie. Necromancers seem to have refined the art of weaving dead flesh into these fearsome fighting undead soldiers. Where as a normal zombie might easily fall apart, minions are tough and much stronger. They can take more of a beating, and have claws so they do more damage.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

That sounds like a good reason to me. And it could also be specialization. Because if you think about it, assembling a meat-puppet out of many corpses in the soil, is really not that different from assembling one corpse just as it was. And as Derom also pointed out, a minion is a very specific type of undead servant, equipped with specific attributes that the necromancer needs. A minion is more than a normal zombie.

The Flesh Golem is a good example of a minion that has all the right attributes to be more than just a zombie. Necromancers seem to have refined the art of weaving dead flesh into these fearsome fighting undead soldiers. Where as a normal zombie might easily fall apart, minions are tough and much stronger. They can take more of a beating, and have claws so they do more damage.

That’s disgusting, logical and slightly amoral. Yeah, sounds like something a necromancer would do.

From what it seems with the examples in GW1, if someone can control the souls of the dead they have gone past necromancy and are a lich.

Auvit.2970:

From what it seems with the examples in GW1, if someone can control the souls of the dead they have gone past necromancy and are a lich.

A Lich is a completely different state of being. It is often someone who voluntarily decides to live in an undead state (sometimes by locking his own soul away in a phylactery). Obviously it is usually powerful evil spell casters that are able to do this, which is why a Lich is also often capable of powerful dark magic. But that’s simply because making yourself into a Lich requires powerful dark magic to begin with.

Vizier Khilbron was such a Lich, and if we are to believe the lore behind accessories, he also had a phylactery. I am however not sure if we can take this item as definitive lore to assume that he did have a phylactery. There have been other Liches in Guild Wars, such as Palawa Joko (who I assume made himself a Lich), Fendi Nin (who I’ll talk about below) and Zoldark the Unholy (who becomes more powerful when his minions are alive). A lot of undead dragons are also called Dragon Liches, such as Rotscale, but I don’t feel they fall into quite the same category. In all other cases though, a Lich is a very intelligent undead and powerful spellcaster.

Fendi Nin is special, since when ever he is slain, his soul appears. This seems to suggest that Fendi is simply able to find new bodies as long as his soul isn’t destroyed. With Zoldark we never see his soul, but arguably every time you do his dungeon he’s back to life again. Then again, so are all bosses when you restart a dungeon. But for a Lich it would make sense that simply killing him is not enough.

I don’t actually know if Vizier Khilbron made himself a Lich, or if it was a by product of the cataclysm that he brought upon Orr. Was he already a Lich before he used the forbidden spell? Or did he become one afterwards? But if it was a result of the destruction of Orr, then why would he have a phylactery in GW2? See, that is why I’m hesitant to use these items as valid lore.